IONA

Games, Events and Demonstrations

The post that follows is not about a single protest, a particular issue or grinding any axes. Instead, as a result of playing and designing Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) and RPGs, we're going to take a look at possible approaches to turning demonstrations into events. By that we mean exploring ideas borrowed from games and ARGs, which can, hopefully, help peaceful demonstrators to win support and change attitudes.

Festivals

Starting with the most obvious and widely used option; one well-established way to put across a message while avoiding confrontation is to create a festival or family atmosphere. Marches and rallies which cater for kids, involve shared activities and parade colourful banners immediately reduce tension, while presenting issues in a positive light.

This approach can become (very) predictable and, at times, may be at odds with raising certain issues. Nevertheless, there's a lot to be said for playing-up the merits of an argument whenever possible.

graffiti or sig petition walls made from card or demonstrators wearing white t-shirts.

chalking-out games like chess or draughts and using demonstrators as counters.

sharing sets of differently coloured glowing sticks to spell out a message at night.

applying temporary water-based tattoos or large vegetable stamps.

traditional challenges or ordeals/ sponsored activities.

recording a protest as it happens through sketches or sketch and photo-collage.

It's sometimes hard to find a completely new take on most of these activities, but they can be tailored to fit many causes and often help to form the atmosphere of, perhaps, a charity event or open day - without turning a serious occasion into a funfair or carnival.

Performances

Few protest groups are going to want jugglers or clowns stealing the limelight at a rally about poverty or extreme injustice. However, there is already an outstanding example of political performance art on display across the streets of Bristol, which suggests there's a lot to be gained from treating protests as events.

For many years most street art was condemned as vandalism throughout the UK. That was until Banksy, and others with both artistic and political agendas, began displaying performance street art. Their work caught the headlines and before long became widely and officially recognised as worthwhile art. So much so, that any local authority recognising a 'Banksy' on a wall is more likely to protect it than remove it.

The political effects of these artists' 'protest' has been seen recently in the See No Evil event held across Bristol recently. Local officials didn't object to the event, they went to great lengths to help to organise it.

We can't all have Banksy's artistic talents, but we can all become political performance artists through using certain types of collective performances to provide strong focal points during demonstrations. Examples of possible approaches might include:

asking everyone to decorate a postcard on the topic of the issue and then displaying them.

giving out several colours of card and displaying the results as a rainbow or such like.

inviting everyone to bring along a message on a card.

setting-out a giant chalk spider diagram or infographic about the issue/ s.

displaying messages which need simple decoding.

showing an over-sized, high correction QR code at a resolution that reads straight-off TV screens.

placing a code inside or on either side of a campaign's logo.

using seasonal weather to form visual logos and messages, including leaves in autumn and water on dry walls.

preparing and sharing food related to or decorated to support an issue.

Campaigning

Many issues and protests call for sustained campaigns. Technology as straightforward as a basic RSS feed clearly offers straightforward approaches to building and sustaining a protest or demonstration; with images and footage from the types of activities outlined above supplying media for online campaigning. Such technologies allow protest groups to deliver direct, real-time support to protesters 'on the ground' during demonstrations.

Making connections between campaigners attending a protest and active, multimedia feed content is helpful, but it's all the better if other types of community-based activity can be slotted into the same loop. For example, sponsored events, outreach work, lobbying and viral marketing activities might all be blended into the online presence supporting a particular demonstration. Options could include:

screening examples of the full range of a good cause's activities at a protest.

arranging performances with the potential to go viral online.

holding online competitions with prizes that can be worn at demonstrations.

co-ordinating online and on the ground events to focus on particular highlights, e.g. a dramatic conclusion to a demonstration.

Serious Games

It's also possible to use gameplay and performance to form and shape demonstrations through configuring suitable protests as gameplay. Sound complicated - there's not a lot of difference between a Beetle Drive and a game of Zombie Dice.

We can consider this approach in more detail with a look at the opportunities opened-up by a QR-code hunt activity, which could distribute a demonstration for hours before shaping a collective performance, and a calm dispersal, at the end of the day. Benefits might include:

delivering issue-related information and links within the search activity.

playing as teams and groups of teams to enable networking and shared engagement.

completing community-focused productions.

offering virtual objects such as icons, wallpapers and apps during the search activity, e.g. a personal participation diary.

building a campaign while avoiding 'flash points'.

blending demonstrations into virtual and local community network activities.

augmenting reality by pulling interactive production plans and presentations out into physical space.

The last of these may sound futuristic or expensive, but you don't need to spend a fortune on projecting animated 3D objects. Just send demonstrators on the ground a picture of a Hopscotch grid, suggest they find some chalk and ask them to decorate before trying it out.

The example may sound trivial, but sets of playground games chalked-out and played at key locations around a city might be one way to draw attention to a variety of childcare or school funding issues.

IONA

Something Out of Nothing

With few resources we sometimes need to invent our own solutions - often from next to nothing.

The most helpful ideas can result from having to think more creatively, because there are almost no funds or very limited resources:

Check you’re not re-inventing the whole wheel.

Plan and plan some more.

Habits die hard, so it is often easier to look for solutions that improve on or build on existing solutions.

Look for a range of uses and audiences for your innovations.

Get the most out of what you have before you start to bring in new technologies and overheads.

Get close to or inside the problem so you know how things work on the ground.

Consider knock on effects where one innovation may lead to more innovations.

The easier it is to use, the more it will get used.

Inexpensive innovations can reach wider audiences.

Aim for wide audiences and think beyond limits.

Festivals

One well-established way to put across a message while avoiding confrontation is to create a festival or family atmosphere. Marches, meetings and rallies which cater for kids, involve shared activities and parade colourful banners immediately reduce tension. Options include:

Co-ordinating online and offline events to focus on highlights, e.g. a dramatic conclusion to a march.

Games and Activism

Looking at events and activities in terms of gameplay is another easy route to fostering community-driven, non-intrusive activism. This includes emphasising participation while delivering issue-related information and links within game, quiz and search activities.

Options available to most activists include:

Running events with teams and groups of teams to enable networking and shared engagement.

Placing community and issue-focused events and content within the home and local community.

Offering collections of virtual objects such as badges, wallpapers and apps during games or search activities to form personal accounts and galleries of participation.

Building a campaign around consensus through activities that promote fun and consensus over confrontation.

Blending demonstrations into virtual and local community network activities.

Trying out augmenting reality apps that can pull interactive presentations out into physical space.

Civic Nationalism

Civic nationalism is credited with aiding democracy in the past on a number of occasions and is, essentially, about a participative politics and peaceful, civic activism.

Unlike ethnic nationalism, civic nationalism involves communities and populations becoming much more directly engaged in their own representation and aiming to look after their own affairs.

“Civic nationalism is a . . . a non-xenophobic form of nationalism compatible with values of freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights.”

“Civic nationalism is the form of nationalism where the state derives political legitimacy from the active participation of its citizenry (see popular sovereignty), to the degree that it represents the “general will”.” - Wikipedia

Civic Internationalism

Civic internationalism is a natural development from a genuinely civic nationalism. It is simply based around mutual respect for cultural diversity - and offers an outward facing approach to civic nationalism.

This form of activism recognises that shared concerns and cultures extend over national boundaries and aims to finding common ground/ adopt shared approaches that deliver results – constructive change.

ActivitIES 2

Build a Facebook or comparable photo album and/ or desktop folder with ready to share infographics, posters, motivational posters, cartoons, which make it easy to mix up your replies.

Emphasise key points. Folk only consider a maximum of 3 at a time, so pensions, childcare, child poverty, casino banking, private health and private policing maybe call for extra attention. And, yeah, I should only have listed 3 of those.

Make stuff. For some that's sawing out giant wooden signs for others baking iced cakes and handing them round.

Break things up with a few colourful images in preference to walls of text.

Share a few Scottish poems around any book group pals and Facebook or have a poetry slam.

Chalk boards are great for leaving messages around for visitors and for practicing chalk art. Chalk art and other types of flash art like water on a dry wall need to be on your own/ permitted surfaces. Otherwise, Hopscotch on the ground, flag on the side of the garage, wee cartoon popping out of a drain.

Paper art can be left in plenty of places without littering. A pamphlet in a book you're passing round, an origami design left on a table, a decorative bookmark handed out with something else.

Make your own fridge magnets and signs using inkjet magnetic paper.

F2F Activities

A far from exhaustive list:

Bake off

Barbecue

Book sale

Boardgame tournament

Cake sale

Celebrity auction

Coffee morning

Collaborative art

Concert

Cookbooks

Dance marathon

Domino/ book drop

Expedition

Face painting

Fashion show

Film show

Flower/ fruit sales

Fun run

Gala

Game night

Golf match

Halloween party

Ice skating show

Judo competition or demonstration

Karaoke night/ competition

Masked ball

Midnight movie

Musicals

Nail painting

Obstacle course

Orienteering

Pancake breakfast

Parties

Picnics

Photography competition

One of the added bonuses to such events lies in the videos and pics that can then be distributed.

Images and videos of good-natured activism/ participation are by some distance the most shareable content Indy produces. (Or so the numbers say at this end).